Iran Reveals Enrichment Plant

Friday, September 25th, 2009

With President Barack Obama in the chair at an unprecedented meeting of the U.N. Security Council, major world powers on Thursday endorsed his goal of a nuclear weapons-free world and pledged to strengthen the shaky international system for preventing the spread of nuclear arms.

The Security Council unanimously passed a U.S.-drafted resolution that endorses the eventual goal of “a world without nuclear weapons.” It lays out steps for nuclear powers to trim their arsenals, while making it harder for other nations to convert civilian nuclear programs to military ones.

While it isn’t clear how fast this will come about, diplomats and private security experts called it the most significant U.N. action on nuclear weapons proliferation in years.

President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain on Friday blasted Iran’s construction of a previously unknown uranium enrichment facility and demanded that Tehran immediately fulfill its obligations under international law or risk the imposition of harsh new sanctions.

“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow,” Obama said, detailing how the facility at Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Association. “International law is not an empty promise.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused Iran of “serial deception” that he said “will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve.”

“We will not let this matter rest,” Brown said. “…Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear programs.”

We will become very angry with you, and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are. Ah geez, you’re really busting my balls here Hans. Why don’t you take a few steps to your left…

Looks like the sun has set on the era of finger-waggling disarmament diplomacy. Time to put it on history’s bookshelf, right next to the League of Nations. The task before us now, is to find a new way to confront the threat, and then figure out how to explain to our grandchildren the finger-waggling diplomacy was supposed to work…how & why it ever made sense to anyone.

I’m not sure which one of those two tasks is more difficult. One is going to involve people dying, the other one has a real chance of being altogether impossible. Time will tell.

When is the UN going to figure out that sanctions aren’t going to stop Iran from going nuclear, even if properly enforced? Even if nobody involved in the process was corrupt, incompetent, or under-staffed?

If I could have five minutes of speaking time at the UN General Assembly, I would say the following words:

“Ladies and gentlemen, people of all nations. It is with a grave concern that I announce to you that diplomacy has failed at preventing Iran from continuing its work on nuclear weapons. Regrettably, I also inform you that economic sanctions aimed at preventing the importation of military-purposed nuclear technology has also failed.

It seems that Iran has native, naturally-occurring deposits of uranium-238 within its existing borders; it was not necessary for the country to attempt to purchase yellowcake from Niger as Saddam Hussein reportedly tried to do. Moreover, Iran has received the necessary scientific training and enrichment centrifuges from AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Iran already has everything it needs to produce uranium hexaflouride gas, and from there, highly-enriched uranium-235 far beyond the low purity required for a reactor’s fuel rods. Instead, it has the know-how to produce high-purity U235 for a nuclear warhead.

The one thing that Iran needs that it does not have, is time. That is all it requires, ladies and gentlemen of the world. While this Security Council and this chamber pursue the dead-end of diplomacy – which Europe has attempted and failed – and while this august body continues to threaten sanctions, Iran’s enrichment work continues. Once it has enriched enough material for a fissile core, it is then only a matter of time before this rogue nation also masters the miniaturization technology necessary to mount a warhead onto one of its long-range Shahab-3 missiles, the ones so generously provided by North Korea.

Unless this grave and gathering threat is confronted militarily – immediately – it will soon be forever too late. America may choose to act, Israel may choose to act – but make no mistake…this is a serious situation that threatens security across the entire Middle East and from there, the entire world.

It’s too bad the plant isn’t for enriching pasta or flour or something.

It’s also too bad that Iran ISN’T a nice normal country that has given every indication of wanting to live in peace with the rest of the world. You’ll notice nobody got upset when France or Japan started building reactors. Hell, the French even have ICBM’s and nobody seems concerned. No one down at the UN proposed putting sanctions on those countries, or for that matter, on India when it went nuclear a few years ago.

Iran could have that kind of relationship with the rest of the world, if it so desired. So could North Korea. But in both cases, the rulers have decided that the normal business of trade and commerce is less important than being oogedy-boogedy scary big n’ bad.